Eleanor W. Willemsen

Does exercise environment enhance the psychological benefits of exercise for women

Two experiments examined the psychological benefits of exercise environment. In Experiment 1, 128 female college students were assigned to 1 of 3 laboratory conditions that differed only in with whom they were exercising; in Experiment 2, 88 students were assigned to 1 of 4 walking conditions that differed in the environment (i.e., indoors vs. outdoors) and whom they were with. Before and after exercise, participants completed several mood and enjoyment measures. Participants in Experiment 1 were most calm when exercising alone than with others, and participants in Experiment 2 found the experience most enjoyable if outdoors. Our findings suggest that perceived enjoyment and outdoor exercise may account for some of the psychological benefits of exercise for women.

Studying Sex Prejudice in Children

Summary A methodology for studying sex prejudice in children was explored in this study. An eight-year-old child, dressed in a sexually neutral set of clothing, was filmed performing 12 common recreational activities—four of which had previously been identified as typical of boys, four as typical of girls, and four as common to both sexes. The film was shown to 352 children from the first, third and fifth grades of two public elementary schools. For half the children at each grade level the filmed model was identified as a girl (“Anne”), for the other half as a boy (“John”). The children were asked to rate the models performance on each of the 12 activities, and ratings assigned by children viewing “Anne” and those viewing “John” were compared. Both boys and girls were found to be biased in favor of their own sex, but this was especially true for girls. The tendency for girls watching “Anne” to assign higher ratings than those watching “John” was present among first graders, and became more pronounced wi...

The influence of brief episodes of aerobic exercise activity, soothing music-nature scenes condition, and suggestion on coping with test-taking anxiety

This study examines the influence of aerobic exercise activity, soothing musicnature scenes condition, and suggestion on coping with test-taking anxiety. Sixty test anxious subjects were randomly assigned to four treatment groups consisting of 15-min episodes of exercise or soothing music-nature scenes condition with or without verbal suggestion that the treatment task in which they were engaged would be helpful to them. A videotaped “intelligence test” used to stimulate test-taking anxiety was given to the subjects after the soothing music-nature scenes condition or exercise tasks. The Multiple Affect Adjective Checklist (MAACL) was used to appraise anxiety during the laboratory procedures. Results indicate that exercise, soothing music-nature scenes condition, and suggestion play a role in reducing anxiety. While relaxation activity proved to be superior to exercise in reducing anxiety immediately following the “treatment” episode, these differences disappear following exposure to a stressful “IQ test” and exercise (as well as suggestion) had a better stress inoculation effect than soothing music-nature scenes condition or no suggestion.

Sex-Role Orientation, Self-Esteem, and Uniqueness: An Exploration of the Undifferentiated Category

72 college students took the Personal Attributes Questionnaire, the five-scale Offer Self-image Questionnaire, and the Need for Uniqueness scale. Differences in self-esteem and uniqueness scores among undifferentiated, feminine, masculine, and androgynous individuals were determined. The analysis showed that androgynous and masculine individuals had generally better self-esteem than feminine and undifferentiated individuals. There were sex differences in self-esteem only for sexual and for social self-esteem. These differences were predicted by sex-role orientation with mens sexual self-esteem being enhanced by masculinity and depressed by femininity, whereas womens social self-esteem was predicted by masculinity. Need for Uniqueness appears to be an aspect of self-esteem for women but not for men.

USE OF A PERCEPTUALLY BASED APPARATUS TO TRAIN ADULT WOMEN'S PERFORMANCE ON A PIAGETIAN MEASURE OF THE HORIZONTALITY CONCEPT

A segmented container called the V-box was designed to train adult subjects who fail a Piagetian type measure of the horizontality concept. The first segment appears round when viewed from straight on and virtually all adults were able to predict correctly how the water line would appear when this segment was half filled with water. Partitions can be removed and the water allowed to fill up the entire container which has straight-line boundaries. On a pretest, 28 of 43 subjects failed to indicate the water line correctly on the container, when its straight-line characteristics were apparent. Of these 28, 18 were able to do so after being exposed gradually to the containers rounded segment and, step by step, to its elongated segments with straight-line boundaries. The difference in pre- to posttest change in performance between these 18 subjects and the 10 control subjects was significant.

Disjunctive Concept Utilization in Preschool Children.

Summary Twenty-four children, eight each in three age groups, were asked to “play a game” which required them to utilize disjunctive concepts such as “blue or car.” The disjunctive concepts used were the nine which can be formed by combining one value from among three possibilities on the color dimension (green, blue, red) with one value from among three possibilities on the form dimension (car, boat, airplane). The task consisted of 18 five-choice trials with each of the nine disjunctive concepts represented twice—once with the color mentioned first and once with the form mentioned first. Ss were required to pick the positive instance card. All three groups performed significantly better than chance (ps. < .0001) on the task. A significant relation between age and performance on this task was found (Rho = .65, p < .05). There were no sex differences. The results are discussed in relation to task variables and an associative view of cognitive development.

Factors Influencing Custody Decisions in Contested Adoption Cases

In a number of recent controversial adoption cases, courts have been forced to decide if an unwed father should be granted custody of his child when the mother purposely fails to inform him of the childs birth or of her intention to place the child for adoption. The current study utilized three bi-variate independent variables from which eight vignettes were created depicting scenarios modeled on actual court cases. It was conducted as a preliminary investigation intended to examine the factors which are important to people when making custody decisions, to see if the importance of these factors varies with circumstance, and to examine their concurrence with factors utilized in judicial decisions. The results suggest that although subjects stress the importance of characteristics associated with being a good parent, the specific circumstances of each separate case and also the subjects gender have influential effects on custody decisions.

The Effect of Affective Labeling of Response Items on Paired-Associates Learning

Summary A rationale was sought for the general result that adult subjects find hostile words more difficult to learn than neutral words. A paired-associates task was constructed, and as responses nonsense syllables were used which had previously been experimentally associated with affectively significant adjectives. Three sets of three syllables each were created. One set consisted of syllables previously associated with “hostile” adjectives, one set consisted of syllables previously associated with “kindly” adjectives, and one set consisted of those previously associated with neutral adjectives. Results showed that the “neutral” syllables were more difficult to learn than either of the affectively significant sets. An explanation in terms of the greater dissimilarity in meaning among the neutral adjectives was offered.

The effect of social reinforcement on children’s story themes

A task resembling a projective test was administered individually to 21 sixth-grade children. Positive, negative, and neutral social reinforcement was given at various stages in each child’s session. It was found that negative social reinforcement reduced the tendency to persist with the original theme. The remaining two reinforcement conditions did not differ.